Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Hardcover)

By the time the Mongols roared across Asia, or the Moguls invaded India, many cultures around the world already changed so much that bioregional factors, though seminal in the creation of these broadest trends, weren't nearly as important as the political, religious and economic ones. He is not ignoring religion and so on but, he states plainly several times that isn't his focus. He is looking for ultimate causes--before humans had extremely advanced mental concepts like religion.

He also wanted to point out the devastating influence of disease on history. It was surely the European germs that did most of the conquering of Native Americans. The guns and horses were almost incidental. Later on, once Europeans had established themselves, then we can focus on economic and political systems. But we can't ignore the effects of the diseases unleashed on the Americas. These plagues gave the Europeans a very lucky boost that catapulted them beyond the wealth and power of China, India or the Middle East--long before the Industrial Revolution made this gap obvious.

Another thing that some people seem to be having trouble with is his assertions about the native intelligence of tribal peoples around the world. (If you read the book, you notice that he is not just saying this about the New Guineans.)

He takes pains to point out what he means by this. He not talking about some mysterious genetic superiority of tribal peoples. It's all straight up culture. Tribal culture forces people to be better generalists than they'd have to be in literate civilizations. They can't rely on embedded support structures like books for memory or experts for obscure fields. They have to be pretty good at a lot things. Otherwise they die. They have to be better at memorizing things because they can't count on computers or books to remember things for them. Living in a dangerous, wild environment makes them cautious and aware of all that is going on around them. That was all he meant. The circumstance of tribal peoples force them, only in very broad ways and only on an individual basis, to be smarter and more curious than civilized people.

And in the end it does them no good. Because civilized societies are SMARTER than tribal societies. That is why tribal society has been steadily disappearing over the millenia. They just can't compete.

Finally, of course the book is repetitive. In fact he sums up his argument in the preface of the book. You needn't even read the rest if you don't want to. The rest of the book consists of him reiterating his points from different angles to point out the objections he has managed to answer and the many questions that still remain. He is just following scholarly practice and exposition--just to make things clear that he has thought about this.

He knows that his theory can't explain everything. In the epilog he points out that China, India and the Middle East are good counter examples to his idea. They each had an expansionist rise to great power--a time when they were unafraid to try new ideas and explore new ways of doing things. If the highly complex forces of economics, politics, religion had arrayed themselves differently. We might all be speaking Arabic now. Or Cantonese. Europe was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time for things to come together as they did.

Most illuminating and thoroughly researched are the relationships between the available species of plant and animal available to early farmers, and the development of farming and with it "civilization". One uses the word with caution given the extensive discourse that Diamond has upon the subject. Of similar interest is the way that linguistics are used to underpin and cross-reference archealogical data concerning the movement and development of peoples on a global geographical scale.

The thing that really brings the book to life is the personal passion of Diamond himself. He has worked at close quarters with "primitive" peoples - a word whose use he would object to - and he is at pains to debunk the notion of one society being in some way genetically superior to another. He mixes research data with personal anecdotes and experiences in a way that illuminates and illustrates what he is saying, without losing the scientific objectivity of his principal vantage point.

The book is well-written, has a clear structure and flows well. At certain points it can be a little laboured, some commonsense points being explained over several pages, but this usually happens when he is tackling some commonly held misperception. He uses the question of a New Guinea friend, basically "why do some societies do better than others" as opening background, though as an attention-grabber it seemed a little weak and as a "red thread" came over as slightly contrived. The book really gets into its stride in about the second or third chapter. However, this is a very minor criticism of a work of masterly proportions and execution.

I would thoroughly recommend this book. If nothing else, the reader will be able to watch television documentaries about far-flung places and spot the triteness and popular inexactitude of some of the commentary. However, in terms of driving a stake into the ground, and saying "this is where we come from" and why, this is the defining work, and well deserving it is of its Pulitzer Prize status.

One book which seeks to do so (in the specifically military sphere) is "Why the West has Won" by Victor Davis Hanson, who accuses Diamond of determinism and ignoring unique cultural variables. I think the latter has a political agenda, that capitalism and individualism are inherently superior to other cultural characteristics - but, to be fair, I am sure Diamond too, when he concludes that Caucasian Westerners have no inherent superiority to other races and cultures, is equally politically motivated.

Doesn't mean either of them is wrong, though. Read both books and see what you think.